


Whining and Dining

by Shachaai



Series: APH Olympics [4]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Rio 2016 Summer Olympics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 17:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20012173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shachaai/pseuds/Shachaai
Summary: Trials, tribulations, and eating habits in the Olympic Village dining room.





	Whining and Dining

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted from my tumblr. This (including the notes) was originally written at the time of the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.

France has slid into the chair opposite Scotland in the dining room before Scotland notices him, the Brit too busy staring off at the food stations not too far away, idly clinking a spoon around in a mug of some very orange-looking tea. (Hopefully the distracted extra stirring will help the large amount of sugar Scotland likes in his tea actually _dissolve_ a bit more than usual; just _kissing_ Scotland after he’s downed a ‘cuppa’ in a few great swallows leaves a sweet gritty _film_ of sugar on France’s teeth. Accidentally _drinking_ a cup of tea meant for Scotland - an unfortunate occurrence that has happened a hundred too many times - makes France feel like he needs to immediately schedule a trip to the dentist.)

To France’s great pleasure - he soaks up attention and sees no reason to deny it -, Scotland smiles when he comes back to himself to see who has joined him at his table. (It is rather like watching a particularly rugged auburn boulder smile, had the boulder in question been forced to primp up and polish itself to attend a great sporting event. And look, Scotland had clearly shaved that morning; the boulder has had its moss scrubbed off.) _“An Fhraing.”_

 _“Écosse,_ ” France smoothly returns, with a - more charming - smile of his own, “ _bonjour._ Or _mal_ jour, perhaps; you have given me _quite_ the run around. How could you? I could have gotten sweaty.”

“Me?” Scotland looks puzzled by the accusation, his brows furrowing majestically and spoon halting against the side of its mug.

“But of course!” France hits his open palm lightly with one closed fist. “In the _spirit_ of international friendship and these great games I thought _ah!_ Who _better_ to appreciate my fine presence for lunch this glorious day than a certain family of reclusive brothers that I know? We shall eat together and improve our deep bond as unfortunately eternal neighbours -”

“Portugal pretended he wasn’t home again when you went to bother him, didn’t he?”

France twists up his face in an artful _moue_ at Scotland’s - accurate - interruption, treating the sardonic input with the contempt it deserves. “I travelled _all the way_ up to your ridiculous little building in the Village -”

“Which is the _exact_ same size as yours -”

“And _when I got there!”_ France stabs an accusatory finger across the table - which does not so much make Scotland pay more attention to him as it does make Scotland move his tea, cradling the mug between his large palms. “As you say it, the _cupboard_ was bare -”

“And so the poor doggy got none.”

 _“Écosse!”_ France is quite put-out his dramatic tale is being mocked. To his face!

Scotland just shrugs at him, and lifts his mug to take a large swallow of his tea. His eyes flick away from France to look at the busy food stations again. “It’s the next line of the rhyme.”

“That is _quite_ beside the point,” France huffs, and gives into his own curiosity at last to turn around in his seat to peer in the direction that has so much of Scotland’s attention, smoothing back some of his hair behind his ear at the same time. “Your athletes said I might find _the tall one and the hungry one_ here, when I asked for your whereabouts. _You_ are clearly the former. I assume the latter description means you are waiting on petit Irlande du Nord?”

“Aye,” says Scotland, and tips his head just enough to indicate France should move his gaze along the food stations just a shade to spot - _ah!_ Northern Ireland, the youth waiting intently in a queue of Chilean and Seychellois athletes by the Caribbean cuisine. “I’m keeping the table for us ‘til he’s got his grub. Wales got pulled away by one of the weans earlier. England’s swimming.”

“Swimming?” France blinks back at Scotland. “During the hottest part of the day?”

Scotland, overcome with the usual _staggering_ amount of brotherly concern he reserves for his siblings, shrugs. “Long as the mercury stays under thirty he’ll nae die.” That is a strange amount of Scottish faith being placed in England. “Anyway, if he _does_ , someone’ll pull him out. Probably.”

…That sounds more like Scotland.

Assured his companion of the centuries has not suddenly been replaced by a fraternally-minded imposter, France turns his attention back to the wandering Northern Ireland, the younger Nation now gravitating towards the part of the dining hall specialising in Asian cuisine. “What is for lunch today, do you suppose?” There must be _some_ purpose to Northern Ireland’s movements between the stations.

Scotland finishes his tea before peering at his brother again, his squint intimidating enough that three Estonian athletes wisely veer away from the empty seats at the end of Scotland and France’s table, deciding to go and find seats elsewhere instead. “Fusion cuisine, I reckon.”

France perks up; that sounds incredibly sophisticated for his neighbours, whose preferred fare of choice is best described using one of their own words: _stodge_. Perhaps being exposed to so much _choice_ in this hall is finally having some good effect on impoverished tastebuds? “What kind?”

Apparently knowing precisely what line of thought France had been on, Scotland gives him a look flat as someone rolled over by the metaphorical boulder France had compared him to. “The kind where you pile as many different kinds of food in as big a mountain on your plate as you can manage, ‘til it all fuses together in some kind of primordial glop.”

…France should have chosen to get lunch alone.


End file.
